Re: What Did You Watch? 2025-06-23 (Monday)

Arthur Lipscomb <arthur@alum.calberkeley.org> wrote:

Child's Play (4K disc) 2019 remake that swaps out a cursed doll voiced
by Brad Dourif for a doll with AI voiced by Mark Hammill.  The AI bonds
with a little boy then goes on a killing spree.  This was not good.  It
was mostly background noise with the director's commentary.  I could
tell from the commentary the director had no idea what he was doing.  At
one point on the commentary he even said he didn't know why the doll was
doing what it was doing, but it was in the script.

The scriptwriter wasn't taking calls? If more dialog was needed to
explain motivation, then he should have demanded revision or written it
himself like many directors would do. Remind me again who is supposed to
be in charge between the director and the writer.

The Studio (AppleTV+)  I started watching this recently and made it
through the first 4 episodes.  The series stars Seth Rogen as the new
promoted head of a film studio and follows his wacky adventures behind
the scenes.  The series is full of celebrity cameos.  It's sort of like
"The Player" or maybe that old Fox show, "Action."

Action was terrific. The satire was wicked. The writer jokes were
hysterical. They hired the wrong writer because they forgot the name of
the guy they really wanted. The prostitute gave him, uh, special
motivation to produce the final draft of the script. They wouldn't pay
him the overtime he was entitled to, so they made him a producer. Then,
that joke was paid off: He yelled at a crew member on set, who
subsequently died. The executive producer congratulated him on becoming
a real producer, having killed his first crew member.

Is The Studio funny or not? You didn't say. I still have trouble
picturing Rogan as the executive.